Q16 - When glass products are made

[yama_sekander]

i had a question about the answer. while i picked A through POE, i still am unsettled by the answer.

the stimulus stats that no applications have been found for grades of plastics that are LOWER than the currently lowest commercial grade.

however, the answer only addresses the current lowest grade. since we only know about plastics inability to be used LOWER than the current lowest grade, how can we infer that it currently cant be used at its present grade?

maybe we can use the lowest grade but anything lower than the lowest grade is insufficient

[ohthatpatrick]

You're on top of this, except you're missing the crucial word in answer choice (A): "recycled"

You're correct that we could still make products from the lowest commercial grade (but we couldn't make anything if it dropped below that).

What happens if we make "plastic recycled entirely from the lowest commercial grade"?

Well, the stimulus told us that every time we recycle plastic, it ends up a lower grade.

So if we recycle the lowest commercial grade of plastic, we'll end up with something that's a lower grade than the lowest commercial grade, hence unusable.

Hopefully this will make complete sense to you once you see the detail in the answer choice you seemed to have missed the first go round.

(Note: the correct answer choice to Inference questions normally synthesizes two or more facts. (A) synthesizes the 2nd and 3rd sentence)

[jaclynchau]

Im still a bit unsettled on (A)

The argument says "no applications have been found for grades of plastic that are lower than the currently lowest commercial grade."

However, (A) says products cannot be MADE OUT of plastic recycled entirely from the currently lowest grade.

Just because there's no application for a grade of plastic, does not necessarily mean that it can't be made?

[sarahbbright]

no recyclables can be made
this isn't your individual making them this is discussion about applications hence applicators, not makers hence individuals I guess. Just take it like a Joe.

[antiPsychoMetricians]

As a another user has already noted, the passage says:

"Moreover, no applications have been found for grades of plastic that are lower than the currently lowest commercial grade."

On the other hand, answer choice A says:

"Products cannot presently be made out of plastic recycled entirely from the currently lowest commercial grade."

If plastics that are recycled from the currently lowest commercial grade have no applications, it does not mean that no plastic can be made from recycled plastics of the lowest commercial grade. It just means that if they were to be made, they would have no application.

Am I missing something?

[ohthatpatrick]

Let's put a complete explanation up here.

Question Type: Inference

Task: read the facts ... see if you can synthesize any of them together ... pick the answer you can best prove using only the info given

The first two sentences provide a contrast between recycled glass and recycled plastic: recycled glass can retain its original quality while recycled plastic is always degraded.

(seeing a conditional word like inevitably in the second sentence is a big clue that this 'rule' will be used in the answer)

The last two sentences have overlap concerning 'grades of plastic'.

We know that every round of recycling degrades plastic to a lower grade.
+
If you go lower than the lowest commercial grade of plastic, there are no applications for that crummy plastic.
=========
thus you could potentially infer that there's no point in recycling the lowest commercial grade of plastic. You'll inevitably degrade it to a level of crumminess for which there are no applications.

If you have this prediction, great. If not, just analyze the answers with a mindset of, "could I prove/support this from the info they gave me?"

Look out for trap answers with ideas that are
- extreme
- comparative
- out of scope
- opposite / reversals

(A) This seems to capture what we were anticipating. What would I know about "plastic recycled entirely from the currently lowest commercial grade"? I know that it would inevitably be plastic of an EVEN lower grade than the currently lowest commercial grade. And I know from the last sentence that there are no applications for that crummy level of plastic.

Is saying "there are no applications for this plastic" the same as "products cannot be made out of this plastic"? Seems pretty close. The last couple posters were nervous about equating those two. A couple suggestions:

1. Definitely keep (A) on the first pass, while registering that qualm you have. Some Inference answers aren't perfect Must Be True answers and you just have to live with picking the answer that is "best supported". (A) is definitely saying something similar to what we know when we synthesize the last two sentences, so it's very tempting.

2. What does it mean to say "no applications have been found"? It means "we can't find any use for it". If you COULD make products out of this plastic, then this plastic WOULD have some application. So since this plastic DOESN'T have any application, then you CAN'T make any product out of it.

(B) "impossible" is extreme, beware. And this makes a comparison we are not equipped to judge. As far as we know, recycled glass can be just as good as any kind of glass.

(C) "less expensive" is a comparison we are not equipped to judge. None of our info deals with cost.

(D) "unless" is extreme, beware. The whole talk of "bearing some symbol" is out of scope, beware. Plus, this seems to be OPPOSITE of the gist of what we're being told. We know that recycled plastic is degraded from its previous form, so why couldn't scientists distinguish the inferior recycled form from its superior antecedent?

(E) "the difference is not as great" is a comparison we can't judge. We're not even limiting this to recycled materials ... we're supposed to know something about the highest vs. lowest grades of glass compared to the highest vs. lowest grades of plastic? Where's our info for that.

So (A) is by far our most supported answer.

Hope this helps.

[0007]

If answer choice (E) had read, "The difference in quality between different grades of recycled glass is not as great as that between different grades of recycled plastic," this answer should still be wrong, right? It says glass products can be equal in quality to glass products made from quartz sand, so there is still a possibility that there are more grades of recycled glass than there are grades of recycled plastic. The argument just doesn't specify this comparison, and so we can't conclude anything about the relative gradations of recycled glass and plastic. Is this reasoning right?

[mwalton444]

"2. What does it mean to say "no applications have been found"? It means "we can't find any use for it". If you COULD make products out of this plastic, then this plastic WOULD have some application. So since this plastic DOESN'T have any application, then you CAN'T make any product out of it."

Just because an application has not been found does not mean an application does not exist. Let's say for the past decade, I have had this idea to use the currently lowest commercial grade plastic to make a simple piece of art. This is a product I can make, but I just didn't yet.

You could counter and say that well, "if this idea was in your head than it was found already (by you)." This would wipe out one of the premises and is flawed logic because you are supposed to accept the premises as true."

However, I could come right back and say:

I had and currently have, like many other people, the ability to make a product out of almost anything. So just because an application does NOT presently exist, does NOT mean i do NOT have the ability to make a product out of it. It just means I did not make a product yet. The potential was there all along.

This is why I rejected (A). Anybody CAN make a product if they really want to.

Can someone explain why this is right or wrong? Thanks

[donghai819]

You say:

Just because an application has not been found does not mean an application does not exist. Let's say for the past decade, I have had this idea to use the currently lowest commercial grade plastic to make a simple piece of art. This is a product I can make, but I just didn't yet.

You could counter and say that well, "if this idea was in your head than it was found already (by you)." This would wipe out one of the premises and is flawed logic because you are supposed to accept the premises as true."

However, I could come right back and say:

I had and currently have, like many other people, the ability to make a product out of almost anything. So just because an application does NOT presently exist, does NOT mean i do NOT have the ability to make a product out of it. It just means I did not make a product yet. The potential was there all along.

I am not sure if I entirely comprehend your point, but I guess the phrase "no applications have been found" and the word "presently" in A may explain your question. Ultimately, A doesn't deny the possibility that something might be made out of these crap plastic in the future, as it says "presently". Also, while we can't tell what "products" in A means (as your example such as work of art), we are not told what exactly "applications" are either, so the author definitely can make an argument that when he says "products", he refer it to "applications".